Jun 29, 2021 2:51 AM
yakiudon
86632
788
38
chuyin84
CUT SLING LOAD!
wantednokes
instead of free healthcare
kaoticone
Flexible logistics win wars.
SeRaQt
I think Igor Sikorsky would have been simultaneously thrilled & horrified at the effectiveness of his invention to both save & take lives.
AQuietChaos
What would happen to the chopper if the gun or tank fired mid-air? Surprise loop de loop?
SlimSam
TF is the meaning of this? Carrying shit with a chopper that has no meaning whatsoever with a stereotypical music ? Yes, I'm a pacifist.
vrflyer
All of those are going to be dropped into the ocean.
BradleyNorby
Sling load sweet chariot
bondedlo
Ok Arnold
falconuruguay
CallsignFatNinja
Larkins
get to the choppa? The choppa can come get us and our stuff!
NoSandalsAllowed
UnqualifiedOpinionDispenser
When riding shotgun just isn't enough
copingcabana
Howtizer? "Hits 'er pretty hard, sir."
KaJuN
Ghengis67
It's what America does,abandons its loyal friends in their hour of need
SzKnoWnzEvr72
Slower you whore!
tzxAzrael
[1st 20 seconds] why do i feel like in an anime, someone would be RIDING that artillery, preparing to fire it?
JarikT
dreadfroggy
Ah, fond memories
prdgmshft
Its called the graveyard of empire for a reason
MD11X6
NoBones
if you got a choppa that can carry a tank why not just put the guns on the choppa and use that instead.
evilcarp
That's not a tank and the earth moves when it fires.
Hey kid, you're ruining the moment. Shut up.
justplainvanilla
v
Treblaine
The AI can be a bit weird in ARMA but... hey wait a minute!
Whitey3303
Where is this? They need to do hot and cold load training with a real helicopter. Most crews are happy to help.
ZuSanLiHeGu
Was he making the sound too ? haha
DoYouLikePinaColada
0x11C3P
We train as we fight. Of course he was making the sounds.
Thanks. I am reassured now.
IronIce111
Do not unmute!!!!!!!!!!!
OPsUnbornChild
For real, I was hoping to hear the chop!
PrincePiggo
Whoever thought dubbing The Village People over this vid was a good idea is an imbecile. There, I said it. v
SauronsLeftNut
What's wrong with in the navy?
GREATEASYPIES
Was expecting Fortunate One. Disappointed.
thetruthisinmybutthole
Fortunate Son by CCR?
I am a fool.
We are on the internet, we are all great fools.
MatthewJohnsona
Now i'm wondering what would happen if a piece of artillery fired whilst being carried by a chinook.
DougDeNasty
There was an actual study to modify CH-47s with two forward firing 105mm Xm014 cannons. Link in reply:
Doh, link too long, Google "xm204 ch47 pdf"
Will have to watch the next fast & the furious film to find out.
thecontractor
Or the A-Team with Bradley Cooper and those other guys.
fair point.
My brother-in-law is a C-130 pilot and I asked him if a C-130 could do a loop like in the movie, he said “just the one time.”
And I know the new version can do a loop, but back then they couldn’t. https://youtu.be/GvVlH0eXIV8
But would it look dope as hell?
coastwood
DouglasPouchOfHolding
Holy shit, did you notice him yeeting himself off the ground at the end? :0
NgeruiscatinMaori
It's all fun and games until you run out of sky
BlueskydragonFX
Damn, did it just clip that guy standing there?
kirmes
After the touchdown:
TheWeebleWobler
Using a helicopter to tabogon with was never a good idea.
Fuckimgurcunts
Aww he went sledding
IN005
Damn i seen this but never seen the end where he nearly hits the person and then crashes
This is why I hate the army. Bunch of grown kids with fking deadly machines... Dumbest shit in the history of mankind.
w1k2
Smooth. Like slicing butter with a knife
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan <-- 6th of February, 2012
[deleted]
hofbrauhauss
It landed to the right of the person.
sogermanithurts
no injuries to ground personal, crew only minor injuries. happened 2012
"SHHHH, YOU'RE OKAY, PLEASE DON'T TELL MOM"
SteamingTheCat
What happened? Malfunction?
gablestout
Looks like a vortex ring state. descend at the same rate you are pushing air down for lift. It's as if the air disappears and you just drop
Pilot didn't account for altitude and air density so I have been told. Air is thinner which reduces the lift / reaction times.
softsuit
Yep
LexiClarke
Pilot was doing a morale demonstration for some guys who were being beat up bad high in mtns if Afghanistan. Thin air caused “mushing”
I love the description for horsing around as 'morale demonstration'
I’m not saying it was responsible and it’s 100% the pilots fault but the culture of aviation at the time was to do little things like that..
The maneuver that he pulled was a normal maneuver for AH-64 pilots called a “return to target” but he failed to calc required altitude.
(Cont). to try to make the ground force (who were nearly constantly under attack) to feel like they were not alone.
I am not a pilot
jursamaj
I assume that pilot is no longer a pilot either.
Asadsadsadclown
You have the right of it. But he was being a fucking idiot to begin with, so "not taking account for altitude" is neither her nor there.
I used to live in Gunnison, CO they do a lot of high altitude helicopter training/testing in the area.
Like, acting like an idiot is kinda the direct way of saying he was not taking account. Pilot was being a dope for sure :)
kendrickmeadows1
As a Vet of OEF/OIF it's bittersweet to see the drawdown in Afghanistan, while knowing the Taliban are still poised to take over.
Userlivewire
Unfortunate but time to end Bush II’s Vietnam.
Raziel420
It was unwinnable from the start, unless we went in full go and glazed the country it was just going to be an eternal slog.
sittingonthetube4
Just putting massive armies/firepower to arbitrary places around the world WILL generate more aggression and terrorism against the US.
SuckMySonder
Everyone knew it would be a waste of life and money. No one has won a war there in hundreds of years.
GnomeDeGuerre
Should have taken a clue from the brits or the USSR just a few years before.
bigblindguy
Not sure any of us who went there have any misconceptions about how useless it was in retrospect.
YourMomIsEverything
Yes but now the taliban takeover is a good thing because we'll try to use them against China. Win-win-win.
SenfinaZeit
Its okay once they take over it'll be easier to sell them weapons.
VaultGirl69
There was no getting rid of them. Ideals come from a change from society. Understand why people become violent and fix that.
cheesedogs
Tallys took a beating for sure, but in the end they get what they wanted. Question is if they are dumb enuf to terror at the US anymore
Pevinsghost
Al Qaeda was the terrorist organization. Taliban were Afghan tribals. Take a guess which one we funded, multiple times.
JHRD1880
What terror?
LandiniusMaximus
Same feeling here.. I did two tours in afghan with the danish army.. it was all a waste of time and it will be worse within a few years..
BrdCdn
1/ Poised? They basically either control or contest most of the country outside of Kabul at this point. Every day a district falls. They are
2/ just waiting on the last plane out of Kabul before they move into Kabul itself at this point. Current military estimate is 6 months max.
Trumpolicious
From Operation Southern Watch to Operation Inherent Resolve, I never felt like we were doing anything worthwhile there. It felt like a waste
SirBozlington
Another war lost ey?
War lost, profit won.
We never should have been there, but military action is never the answer. Aid is always far more effective.
rosebudthesled
They tried aid in mogadishu and the military leaders stole it from the people. Blanket statements are not always correct.
wadatahmydamie
We shouldn’t have been there, but Bush needed a quick “easy” answer, and every time Obama tried making it better, the response was the same+
+ “But if we don’t win, it was for nothing.” The sunk cost fallacy, only with human lives in addition to trillions of dollars.+
+ But hey, Cheney’s buddies got super rich selling $8 cans of Pepsi to us.
Promethianfire
We never should have gone to Iraq 2, but I'm not sure zero military response to 9-11would have been the right choice.
Abominablesloth
Assassination was the answer and that was supposedly achieved.
xXxSTEVOxXx
Hey you know what would show militant Islamists that America isnt a colonial empire out to destroy their society? A bunch of invasions.
SaturnineCult
That military response should've been targeted to saudi-arabia then, am I right?
And syria and Iran and Egypt
rando84
We should’ve pressured the Saudis to suppress their clerics & religious extremism (MBS, for all his faults, is basically doing this now). (1
We should’ve also inverted Pakistan’s calculations on supporting the Taliban (which they viewed as a potential tool in the hypothetical (2
EmailFail
If we had never manufactured that conflict, the situation in Afghanistan, and the region, could have been much different
itscoldhere8monthsoftheyear
The Taliban offered Osama up. They knew what was coming and tried to stop it
They accepted Osama when he was being kicked out of Sudan for attacks on the US—they knew exactly what he was from day one.
Doesn't mean they ever expected him to successfully pull off an attack of that scale inside the US. Previously, his big act was the USS Cole
benburckhardt
Where 90% of the worlds heroin comes from. Drugs are winning the war on drugs.
Doismellbacon
Yup, I remember reading articles about poppy farms... And lithium... Hey that was a great Nirvana song, BTW
humptydumptywastheking
Have won*
I’m not saying you’re wrong to feel that way, but the sunk cost thing is what kept us there for so long to begin with. This is Bush’s legacy
abidikgubidik
More Dick Cheney's. Bush happened to go along with him. Cheney was behind both Gulf Wars as well. A lot of money in military contracts
Oh yes. Cheney is a monster too.
Watchkeeper
Perhaps if the grown ups in the room had read The Bear Went Over the Mountain and The Other Side of the Mountain, we might have left alone.
SpamRisk
Dot - so I can come back and read those books after I finish my current one
Lester Grau. IIRC he was a Marine Officer. I read them at War College, research on a presentation about Soviet Logistics in AFG. What I did
Learn was the "taliban" did to us(Nato) , what they did to the Soviets, which they did to us Brits twice before. Even reusing ambush points.
aIohasnackbar
Check out The Great Gamble as well. Great context but constantly watching history repeat itself while deployed there (2x) was depressing. 1/
The higher-ups obviously read them as well, and tactics-wise we were well prepared, but the strategy was flawed. So they read them but 2/
didn't exactly understand them or their message & translate that into a strategy. Plus, it wasn't 20 yrs of war, but 20 1 year wars. 3/
On my 2nd rotation, I checked on some of the initiatives my Bn had implemented, only to find they hadn't materialized b/c the follow on 4/
JarJarDrinks
The Gold Star families rightfully ask what was their sacrifice for.
Direct them to the Bush family.
mondeca
Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop creating new Gold Star families.
Completelyrandomsentence1
Good question. It did buy 20 years of semi stability and womens education. I hope that produces change for the future.
Are we at least tearing down the base so we're not just handing them free bases?
Soviets built it (them) right,?
ShitWasLitFam
all my dead buddies. for nothing?
GodsFoot
Every single one died so arms contracts could be fulfilled making a few people rich. No higher ideals, no morals
mali321
No. Some rich people/companies got richer.
Exactly. Thats what a country running on war will get you.
For profit.
fign37
Sadly, yes.
thesavagery
After my brother got back, I think he rightly said Afghan is where empires go to die. We were never going to win there.
Duffinn
I’ve heard that region called “The Graveyard of Empires” before. Only slightly less well known than getting into a land war in Asia.
SanchoPliskin
Just look at Kipling’s poetry and stories from 100 years ago. The last stanza of “The Young British Soldier” is particularly poignant.
Yakumae
Empires only go there to die when it's not a scorched policy, guarantee back then if they could they would've destroyed it all.
chefsoda
Ask the Soviets how it went, or the British, Ghengis Kahn, Alexander the Great. It's not a place to go for a win
TheYellowOne
Glass it all, salt the earth, and make it radioactive. There, that’s how you win the Afghan war.
mormacil
How did Alexander and Bactria not succeed?
iliveinyourphone
I mean A the G did get his butt kicked a little, but it’s a huge stretch to say Alexander lost in that region. India takes that cake!
Quizz25S
Same for Korea and Vietnam. Both have histories of foreign "invaders" trying and failing, the US is no different despite our technology.
Damiv
All of which are easily winnable if you don’t care about civilian casualties or global opinion.
jkwi
erm korea was annexed by japan between 1910 and 1945, and prior to that it lost heaps of land and was a feeding ground for european powers
I blame my American education, or lack there of. That's my excuse and I'm stickin to it.
philmoregraves
Only way it would be different with our tech is to level the whole place. Otherwise all we really did was give just cause for terrorism
Dasnekones
You had the chance, its just that USA did not have good intentions or realistic goals back then. Burnt bridges and everything.
Itsonporpoise
We had no chance. The ppl there don’t want a state made by someone else. Karzai was a puppet dictator AND we had no plan for what “done” was
GoddamnitClown
"We had no chance" 140chars but choices like that are what made it impossible.
I guess my point was that intentions and plans aren’t shared up and down the policy-making chain.
The stated goal was "get bin laden". The Taliban said $10,000 to pay out people, and any evidence at all, we'll hand him over. US said no.
So here we are, trillions of dollars, thousands dead, and more insurgents than when we started, and trying to pretend it wasn't another 'Nam
bringing democracy to the world in b52s, i mean US military investors probably made heaps
ligmabolz
We will teach the world about our peaceful ways ...... by force
great now i've got "wayward son" stuck in my head
Warbunny5000
Makes me feel like all the time I spent there was for nothing…
daz12Star
I got 2 things out of it to be fair.. sunburn and the shits on the way home
LurkerMcLurkface
It wasn't. You made some insanly rich person richer. It will trickle down.
MaxKlemens
FarkasMacTavish
It was always going to be.
Well, it was for nothing. Good job.
It’s fucked up that we even went to war there in the first place, but Lee Greenwood America needed a target
RobErtE87
If the taliban rule there now and start training terrorists freely, murdering local gays and stuff, should we just watch?
This dumbassed “world police” shit was mocked 20 years ago, but y’all keep pushing it.
Should we keep spending trillions of dollars on a war that’s stagnant at best after 20 years?
Not our country and the UN exists.
chuyin84
CUT SLING LOAD!
wantednokes
instead of free healthcare
kaoticone
Flexible logistics win wars.
SeRaQt
I think Igor Sikorsky would have been simultaneously thrilled & horrified at the effectiveness of his invention to both save & take lives.
AQuietChaos
What would happen to the chopper if the gun or tank fired mid-air? Surprise loop de loop?
SlimSam
TF is the meaning of this? Carrying shit with a chopper that has no meaning whatsoever with a stereotypical music ? Yes, I'm a pacifist.
vrflyer
All of those are going to be dropped into the ocean.
BradleyNorby
Sling load sweet chariot
bondedlo
Ok Arnold
falconuruguay
CallsignFatNinja
Larkins
get to the choppa? The choppa can come get us and our stuff!
NoSandalsAllowed
UnqualifiedOpinionDispenser
When riding shotgun just isn't enough
copingcabana
Howtizer? "Hits 'er pretty hard, sir."
KaJuN
Ghengis67
It's what America does,abandons its loyal friends in their hour of need
SzKnoWnzEvr72
Slower you whore!
tzxAzrael
[1st 20 seconds] why do i feel like in an anime, someone would be RIDING that artillery, preparing to fire it?
JarikT
dreadfroggy
Ah, fond memories
prdgmshft
Its called the graveyard of empire for a reason
MD11X6
NoBones
if you got a choppa that can carry a tank why not just put the guns on the choppa and use that instead.
evilcarp
That's not a tank and the earth moves when it fires.
KaJuN
Hey kid, you're ruining the moment. Shut up.
justplainvanilla
Treblaine
The AI can be a bit weird in ARMA but... hey wait a minute!
Whitey3303
Where is this? They need to do hot and cold load training with a real helicopter. Most crews are happy to help.
ZuSanLiHeGu
Was he making the sound too ? haha
DoYouLikePinaColada
0x11C3P
We train as we fight. Of course he was making the sounds.
ZuSanLiHeGu
Thanks. I am reassured now.
IronIce111
Do not unmute!!!!!!!!!!!
OPsUnbornChild
For real, I was hoping to hear the chop!
PrincePiggo
Whoever thought dubbing The Village People over this vid was a good idea is an imbecile. There, I said it.
v
SauronsLeftNut
What's wrong with in the navy?
GREATEASYPIES
Was expecting Fortunate One. Disappointed.
thetruthisinmybutthole
IronIce111
Fortunate Son by CCR?
GREATEASYPIES
I am a fool.
IronIce111
We are on the internet, we are all great fools.
MatthewJohnsona
Now i'm wondering what would happen if a piece of artillery fired whilst being carried by a chinook.
DougDeNasty
There was an actual study to modify CH-47s with two forward firing 105mm Xm014 cannons. Link in reply:
DougDeNasty
Doh, link too long, Google "xm204 ch47 pdf"
MatthewJohnsona
Will have to watch the next fast & the furious film to find out.
thecontractor
Or the A-Team with Bradley Cooper and those other guys.
MatthewJohnsona
fair point.
thecontractor
My brother-in-law is a C-130 pilot and I asked him if a C-130 could do a loop like in the movie, he said “just the one time.”
thecontractor
And I know the new version can do a loop, but back then they couldn’t. https://youtu.be/GvVlH0eXIV8
MatthewJohnsona
But would it look dope as hell?
coastwood
DouglasPouchOfHolding
Holy shit, did you notice him yeeting himself off the ground at the end? :0
NgeruiscatinMaori
It's all fun and games until you run out of sky
BlueskydragonFX
Damn, did it just clip that guy standing there?
kirmes
After the touchdown:
TheWeebleWobler
Using a helicopter to tabogon with was never a good idea.
Fuckimgurcunts
Aww he went sledding
IN005
Damn i seen this but never seen the end where he nearly hits the person and then crashes
SlimSam
This is why I hate the army. Bunch of grown kids with fking deadly machines... Dumbest shit in the history of mankind.
w1k2
Smooth. Like slicing butter with a knife
DouglasPouchOfHolding
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan <-- 6th of February, 2012
[deleted]
[deleted]
hofbrauhauss
It landed to the right of the person.
sogermanithurts
no injuries to ground personal, crew only minor injuries. happened 2012
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
DouglasPouchOfHolding
"SHHHH, YOU'RE OKAY, PLEASE DON'T TELL MOM"
SteamingTheCat
What happened? Malfunction?
gablestout
Looks like a vortex ring state. descend at the same rate you are pushing air down for lift. It's as if the air disappears and you just drop
CallsignFatNinja
Pilot didn't account for altitude and air density so I have been told. Air is thinner which reduces the lift / reaction times.
softsuit
Yep
LexiClarke
Pilot was doing a morale demonstration for some guys who were being beat up bad high in mtns if Afghanistan. Thin air caused “mushing”
CallsignFatNinja
I love the description for horsing around as 'morale demonstration'
LexiClarke
I’m not saying it was responsible and it’s 100% the pilots fault but the culture of aviation at the time was to do little things like that..
LexiClarke
The maneuver that he pulled was a normal maneuver for AH-64 pilots called a “return to target” but he failed to calc required altitude.
LexiClarke
(Cont). to try to make the ground force (who were nearly constantly under attack) to feel like they were not alone.
CallsignFatNinja
I am not a pilot
jursamaj
I assume that pilot is no longer a pilot either.
Asadsadsadclown
You have the right of it. But he was being a fucking idiot to begin with, so "not taking account for altitude" is neither her nor there.
Asadsadsadclown
I used to live in Gunnison, CO they do a lot of high altitude helicopter training/testing in the area.
CallsignFatNinja
Like, acting like an idiot is kinda the direct way of saying he was not taking account. Pilot was being a dope for sure :)
kendrickmeadows1
As a Vet of OEF/OIF it's bittersweet to see the drawdown in Afghanistan, while knowing the Taliban are still poised to take over.
Userlivewire
Unfortunate but time to end Bush II’s Vietnam.
Raziel420
It was unwinnable from the start, unless we went in full go and glazed the country it was just going to be an eternal slog.
sittingonthetube4
Just putting massive armies/firepower to arbitrary places around the world WILL generate more aggression and terrorism against the US.
SuckMySonder
Everyone knew it would be a waste of life and money. No one has won a war there in hundreds of years.
GnomeDeGuerre
Should have taken a clue from the brits or the USSR just a few years before.
bigblindguy
Not sure any of us who went there have any misconceptions about how useless it was in retrospect.
YourMomIsEverything
Yes but now the taliban takeover is a good thing because we'll try to use them against China. Win-win-win.
SenfinaZeit
Its okay once they take over it'll be easier to sell them weapons.
VaultGirl69
There was no getting rid of them. Ideals come from a change from society. Understand why people become violent and fix that.
cheesedogs
Tallys took a beating for sure, but in the end they get what they wanted. Question is if they are dumb enuf to terror at the US anymore
Pevinsghost
Al Qaeda was the terrorist organization. Taliban were Afghan tribals. Take a guess which one we funded, multiple times.
JHRD1880
What terror?
LandiniusMaximus
Same feeling here.. I did two tours in afghan with the danish army.. it was all a waste of time and it will be worse within a few years..
BrdCdn
1/ Poised? They basically either control or contest most of the country outside of Kabul at this point. Every day a district falls. They are
BrdCdn
2/ just waiting on the last plane out of Kabul before they move into Kabul itself at this point. Current military estimate is 6 months max.
Trumpolicious
From Operation Southern Watch to Operation Inherent Resolve, I never felt like we were doing anything worthwhile there. It felt like a waste
SirBozlington
Another war lost ey?
GnomeDeGuerre
War lost, profit won.
kendrickmeadows1
We never should have been there, but military action is never the answer. Aid is always far more effective.
rosebudthesled
They tried aid in mogadishu and the military leaders stole it from the people. Blanket statements are not always correct.
wadatahmydamie
We shouldn’t have been there, but Bush needed a quick “easy” answer, and every time Obama tried making it better, the response was the same+
wadatahmydamie
+ “But if we don’t win, it was for nothing.” The sunk cost fallacy, only with human lives in addition to trillions of dollars.+
wadatahmydamie
+ But hey, Cheney’s buddies got super rich selling $8 cans of Pepsi to us.
Promethianfire
We never should have gone to Iraq 2, but I'm not sure zero military response to 9-11would have been the right choice.
Abominablesloth
Assassination was the answer and that was supposedly achieved.
xXxSTEVOxXx
Hey you know what would show militant Islamists that America isnt a colonial empire out to destroy their society? A bunch of invasions.
SaturnineCult
That military response should've been targeted to saudi-arabia then, am I right?
xXxSTEVOxXx
And syria and Iran and Egypt
rando84
We should’ve pressured the Saudis to suppress their clerics & religious extremism (MBS, for all his faults, is basically doing this now). (1
rando84
We should’ve also inverted Pakistan’s calculations on supporting the Taliban (which they viewed as a potential tool in the hypothetical (2
EmailFail
If we had never manufactured that conflict, the situation in Afghanistan, and the region, could have been much different
itscoldhere8monthsoftheyear
The Taliban offered Osama up. They knew what was coming and tried to stop it
rando84
They accepted Osama when he was being kicked out of Sudan for attacks on the US—they knew exactly what he was from day one.
itscoldhere8monthsoftheyear
Doesn't mean they ever expected him to successfully pull off an attack of that scale inside the US. Previously, his big act was the USS Cole
benburckhardt
Where 90% of the worlds heroin comes from. Drugs are winning the war on drugs.
Doismellbacon
Yup, I remember reading articles about poppy farms... And lithium... Hey that was a great Nirvana song, BTW
humptydumptywastheking
Have won*
wadatahmydamie
I’m not saying you’re wrong to feel that way, but the sunk cost thing is what kept us there for so long to begin with. This is Bush’s legacy
abidikgubidik
More Dick Cheney's. Bush happened to go along with him. Cheney was behind both Gulf Wars as well. A lot of money in military contracts
wadatahmydamie
Oh yes. Cheney is a monster too.
Watchkeeper
Perhaps if the grown ups in the room had read The Bear Went Over the Mountain and The Other Side of the Mountain, we might have left alone.
SpamRisk
Dot - so I can come back and read those books after I finish my current one
Watchkeeper
Lester Grau. IIRC he was a Marine Officer. I read them at War College, research on a presentation about Soviet Logistics in AFG. What I did
Watchkeeper
Learn was the "taliban" did to us(Nato) , what they did to the Soviets, which they did to us Brits twice before. Even reusing ambush points.
aIohasnackbar
Check out The Great Gamble as well. Great context but constantly watching history repeat itself while deployed there (2x) was depressing. 1/
aIohasnackbar
The higher-ups obviously read them as well, and tactics-wise we were well prepared, but the strategy was flawed. So they read them but 2/
aIohasnackbar
didn't exactly understand them or their message & translate that into a strategy. Plus, it wasn't 20 yrs of war, but 20 1 year wars. 3/
aIohasnackbar
On my 2nd rotation, I checked on some of the initiatives my Bn had implemented, only to find they hadn't materialized b/c the follow on 4/
JarJarDrinks
The Gold Star families rightfully ask what was their sacrifice for.
wadatahmydamie
Direct them to the Bush family.
mondeca
Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop creating new Gold Star families.
Completelyrandomsentence1
Good question. It did buy 20 years of semi stability and womens education. I hope that produces change for the future.
SteamingTheCat
Are we at least tearing down the base so we're not just handing them free bases?
Doismellbacon
Soviets built it (them) right,?
ShitWasLitFam
all my dead buddies. for nothing?
GodsFoot
Every single one died so arms contracts could be fulfilled making a few people rich. No higher ideals, no morals
mali321
No. Some rich people/companies got richer.
sittingonthetube4
Exactly. Thats what a country running on war will get you.
GnomeDeGuerre
For profit.
fign37
Sadly, yes.
thesavagery
After my brother got back, I think he rightly said Afghan is where empires go to die. We were never going to win there.
Duffinn
I’ve heard that region called “The Graveyard of Empires” before. Only slightly less well known than getting into a land war in Asia.
SanchoPliskin
Just look at Kipling’s poetry and stories from 100 years ago. The last stanza of “The Young British Soldier” is particularly poignant.
Yakumae
Empires only go there to die when it's not a scorched policy, guarantee back then if they could they would've destroyed it all.
chefsoda
Ask the Soviets how it went, or the British, Ghengis Kahn, Alexander the Great. It's not a place to go for a win
TheYellowOne
Glass it all, salt the earth, and make it radioactive. There, that’s how you win the Afghan war.
mormacil
How did Alexander and Bactria not succeed?
iliveinyourphone
I mean A the G did get his butt kicked a little, but it’s a huge stretch to say Alexander lost in that region. India takes that cake!
Quizz25S
Same for Korea and Vietnam. Both have histories of foreign "invaders" trying and failing, the US is no different despite our technology.
Damiv
All of which are easily winnable if you don’t care about civilian casualties or global opinion.
jkwi
erm korea was annexed by japan between 1910 and 1945, and prior to that it lost heaps of land and was a feeding ground for european powers
Quizz25S
I blame my American education, or lack there of. That's my excuse and I'm stickin to it.
philmoregraves
Only way it would be different with our tech is to level the whole place. Otherwise all we really did was give just cause for terrorism
Dasnekones
You had the chance, its just that USA did not have good intentions or realistic goals back then. Burnt bridges and everything.
Itsonporpoise
We had no chance. The ppl there don’t want a state made by someone else. Karzai was a puppet dictator AND we had no plan for what “done” was
GoddamnitClown
"We had no chance" 140chars but choices like that are what made it impossible.
Itsonporpoise
I guess my point was that intentions and plans aren’t shared up and down the policy-making chain.
Pevinsghost
The stated goal was "get bin laden". The Taliban said $10,000 to pay out people, and any evidence at all, we'll hand him over. US said no.
Pevinsghost
So here we are, trillions of dollars, thousands dead, and more insurgents than when we started, and trying to pretend it wasn't another 'Nam
jkwi
bringing democracy to the world in b52s, i mean US military investors probably made heaps
ligmabolz
We will teach the world about our peaceful ways ...... by force
jkwi
great now i've got "wayward son" stuck in my head
Warbunny5000
Makes me feel like all the time I spent there was for nothing…
daz12Star
I got 2 things out of it to be fair.. sunburn and the shits on the way home
LurkerMcLurkface
It wasn't. You made some insanly rich person richer. It will trickle down.
MaxKlemens
FarkasMacTavish
It was always going to be.
sittingonthetube4
Well, it was for nothing. Good job.
wadatahmydamie
It’s fucked up that we even went to war there in the first place, but Lee Greenwood America needed a target
RobErtE87
If the taliban rule there now and start training terrorists freely, murdering local gays and stuff, should we just watch?
wadatahmydamie
This dumbassed “world police” shit was mocked 20 years ago, but y’all keep pushing it.
wadatahmydamie
Should we keep spending trillions of dollars on a war that’s stagnant at best after 20 years?
FarkasMacTavish
Not our country and the UN exists.